The farmer's market I mentioned the other day closed the following week. How embarrassing is that? A disillusioned stallholder told me that three weeks out of four it had poured with rain, and on the fourth strong winds blew away their awnings. That led to the punters staying away, so the farmers made a loss and decided to call it a day.

As much as I enjoy food shopping of any kind, buying locally grown produce carries an unmistakable feelgood factor. This week I managed to pick up Dorset-grown blueberries. They have been around for several weeks but I suspect demand outstrips supply at present, so when I finally saw some I pounced.

It is difficult to remember a time when there wasn't a plastic carton of blueberries in my fridge. Their provenance can be anywhere and, for once, flavour gets privilege over air miles. To add to the guilt trip they are one of the few things at which supermarkets excel. No one else seems to manage to sell them without a wrinkle or that telltale speck of white in their eye that so clearly lets you know their old age.

I eat the dusky-blue fruits like sweeties: vitamin-packed M&Ms. Quite the most beautiful fruit en masse, this berry makes a handsome open tart, with its grey bloom and blue-black skin. I have longed to find an excuse to plaster them all over a sponge like Smarties on a children's birthday cake.

Raw, they are the most user-friendly fruit going. No leaves, stalks or hulls to remove, you just rinse and chuck them in your mouth by the handful, like peanuts. Unlike strawberries and raspberries, a blueberry takes to the oven well, its purple juice bubbling up through the crust of a pie or a crisp. That said, on its own the fruit can stand accused of a certain flatness of flavour. I remedy this by adding a little sugar and lemon juice. Suddenly the fruit has an edge, so that means it sits better with the soft sweetness of a crust or pastry case.

Talking of pastry crusts, I have at last made a decent blueberry cobbler. It may be revered in the US as one of the great desserts of all time but I have never found a cobbler - that scone-like crust that sits atop peaches, apples and berries - to be anything other than a lump of leaden dough. So, this week I tweaked and reworked the classic ingredients to give something lighter and softer: a little more raising agent, a tad less sugar and then ditched the double cream for soured cream.

I ended up with a softly, crumbly crust that sat there like sweet, golden cobbles in a stew of hot peaches and brilliant purple berries. But nothing can disguise this fruit's tendency to blandness. With this in mind I would always serve blueberries with a few redcurrants or raspberries, grapefruit or strawberry, soured cream or goat's yogurt: something with enough bite to make the flavour of the fruit stand to attention.

Little blueberry piesSoft pastry for a soothing fruit pie. A sharp cream or yogurt on the side would be appropriate. Makes 4

Rub the butter into the flour with your fingertips, then mix in the icing sugar and the egg yolks. Bring the dough together and squeeze into a round, then roll into a short, fat log before putting in the fridge for half an hour. I find this pastry works well in the food processor, too: first blitz the flour and butter, then mix briefly with the sugar and egg yolks.

Set the oven at 180C/gas mark 4. Rinse the fruit and toss it with the redcurrant jelly, lemon juice and ground almonds. Cut the pastry into four. Flatten each piece on a floured board and use to line the tart tins. Leave any pastry overhanging the edges.

Pile the filling into the tart cases, then loosely fold over any overhanging pastry. It should not meet in the centre: leave a gap so the fruit is visible. Place the tarts on a baking sheet and bake for 25 minutes till the pastry is biscuit coloured and the fruit bubbling. Dust with icing sugar and serve warm or cool.

Set the oven at 200C/gas mark 6. Put the flour, salt, baking powder, sugar and butter in a food processor and blitz for a few seconds, until the mixture resembles soft, fresh breadcrumbs, then tip into a bowl. Slice the peaches, pull out the stones and drop the fruit into an ovenproof dish. Toss the sliced peaches with the blueberries, lemon juice, sugar and flour. Mix the soured cream into the crumb mixture to make a soft dough. Break off walnut-sized pieces and flatten lightly. Lay them on the fruit. Dust the rounds of dough with sugar then bake for 25 minutes till the cobbler is golden and fruit bubbling.

Blueberry and raspberry crushA drink of staggeringly intense colour and flavour, beautifully poised between sweet and sharp. A quick breakfast or maybe a light lunch if you chuck in the other half of the banana. Makes 2 medium glasses.

40-50 blueberries20 raspberriesa glass of apple juiceHalf a banana

Rinse the berries then tip into the jug of an electric blender with the apple juice. Drop in the banana, broken into large pieces. Blitz to a thick slush.

About this article

Nigel Slater: Singing the blues

This article appeared on p40 of the Observer Magazine section of the Observer
on Saturday 14 August 2004.
It was published on
the Guardian website
at 06.47 EDT on Sunday 15 August 2004.
It was last modified at 06.47 EST on Friday 4 November 2005.
It was first published at 06.47 EST on Friday 4 November 2005.